Interprofessional Collaborative Team

In an effort to create more efficient and effective health care services, decision makers and organizational leaders have looked to the implementation of interprofessional healthcare teams to deliver care together as opposed to the traditional model of healthcare delivery one that sees practitioners working alone in silos (Tomblin Murphy, Alder, MacKenzie & Rigby, 2010; Weinberg, Cooney-Miner, Perloff, Babington, & Avgar, 2011). In 2008, the World Health Organization (WHO) Study Group on Interprofessional Education (IPE) and Collaborative Practice (IPC) created a set of definitions to assist the health researchers, educators, policy developers, decision makers and others in developing IPE and IPC in their jurisdictions to both build capacity

This research may also contribute to and support capacity building and sustainability for researchers, decision-makers, regulatory bodies, employers and provider groups as well as others, in their journey toward high-functioning interprofessional collaborative teams.

This study will focus on individual healthcare practitioners in maternal newborn and low-risk obstetrical service delivery. Identifying barriers to interprofessional collaborative practice may result in positive changes to the delivery of low-risk obstetrical care. Positive changes may include better cooperation, mutual trust, communication and a focus on shared knowledge and decision-making. Also, it is anticipated that the synergistic integration and active involvement of these providers in the care of patients and families, may improve healthcare outcomes and resource allocation overall.

Specifically, this research will contribute to the health system

When newly licenced practitioners leave their educational institutions, they may have had interprofessional education supporting them to work with other healthcare providers’ post-licensure (Gilbert, 2005; Mann, 2008; Martínez-Fernández et al., 2011). Some healthcare organizations are just beginning to explore interprofessional collaborative teams and therefore, new graduates may not have worked in IP teams initially (Kozlowski & Bell, 2003; Gordon, 2011). This is supported in some studies that have pointed to the challenge between team members regarding such issues as communication, role clarification and overall trust (Hall, 2005, Sergeant, 2008, Suter, 2009; Campbell, 2014). Therefore, the gap that has been identified in the literature is the lack of available measurement tools or approaches to measure or assess the readiness of post-license practitioners to participate in IP collaborative healthcare teams (Kenaszchuk, 2012). Given this gap, it is suggested that if we are able to identify the readiness of a practitioner to collaborate before entering into a team, some of these challenges will be addressed and the subsequent team will have fewer difficulties working together. For example, a valid and effective tool for predicting interprofessional readiness of potential team members will allow us to address potential barriers to interprofessional team